Pablo Jofré Leal
On March 30, 2018, Palestinian citizens, settled in the Gaza Strip, in a mass gathering with Gazans from Rafah, Jan Younis, Bureij camp, Jabaliya, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, claimed their right to return and the end of the Zionist siege. All of this in the context of the commemoration of Land Day.
Thousands of Gazans met on March 30, 2018, near the artificial fence that separates the coastal enclave from historic Palestine. A Palestine and the West Bank, crossed by settlements of Zionist settlers, which impede the self-determination of a people, which have been fighting for 70 years for self-determination, the return of refugees and the end of apartheid, which has made the Gaza Strip into an enormous concentration camp.
A march that never ceases
Forty-three years ago, on March 30, 1976, Palestinian society called a general strike in the occupied territories in order to prevent the confiscation of 2,000 hectares of Palestinian land (equivalent to 21,000 dunums) by the Israeli army. This is in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Title III, Section Three, generating war crimes through its violation. The protest in 1976 resulted in the murder of seven young Palestinians who gave their lives fighting to protect what is their vital breath, their close relationship with mother earth, their olive trees, their crops, the cattle that graze on their land. The Palestinian martyrs of that day once again pass through our hearts, they are remembered anew, planting an olive tree as a symbol of the ancient relationship that the Palestinian people have with their land, as a sign of historical continuity in the face of the inalienable right to return to their homeland, to return to their roots, where they belong.
Precisely a year ago, I said that within the framework of the commemoration of Land Day in Palestine, thousands of inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, barricaded from 2006 to date, approached the fences that mark the separation of usurped Palestine since 1948. A fence was installed, to tighten even more the siege against this land subjected to daily crimes, to suffocation that violates the human rights of 2 million people, in what is considered the largest concentration camp in the world. It is a monumental replica of those camps that the National Socialists installed in occupied lands during the Second World War. A panorama that many Jews who were in concentration camps must know well and which paradoxically has been put into practice in this 21st Century, by those who have made of their own suffering in that war, a blueprint to be applied now against the Palestinian people. Outstanding, albeit pathological, I dare to say.
Anuar Majluf, a Chilean lawyer of Palestinian descent, Executive Director of the Palestinian Federation of Chile (which has the largest population of Palestinian origin in the world outside the Middle East) says about Land Day and the return march that “forty-three years after the events of 1976, nothing has changed. Israel continues with the theft and colonization of Palestinian land and continues to expand its illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory and also continues dispossession and displacement within Israel. Land Day is a reminder for Palestinians, their descendants, Palestinian exiles and humanity in general, that nothing has changed since Israel was founded in 1948, that nothing has changed since 1976 and therefore we must continue the work of denouncing Israel’s illegal actions.
Majluf also speaks of the right to return, an essential element in the Palestinian people’s demand, which in his case goes very deep because in 2017, when he wanted to enter Palestine and visit the land of his ancestors, he was prevented by the occupying army, alleging that Majluf is a resolute opponent of the Israeli regime. For the Palestinians, the right to return, Majluf points out, is a fundamental pillar in the Palestinian struggle, marking the marches that have taken place since 30 March 2018. It reminds us of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Israel in 1948 and subsequent years, together with the catastrophic consequence of condemning almost an entire people to live outside their homeland, their villages, far from their families. Those who were expelled after the Nakba have the right to return and have the right to build a better future for their children. Return will be the restoration of justice and is one of the fundamental rights that all human beings have: to be able to live freely in their homeland.
Deaths multiply
After one year of return marches, the statistics that mark Zionism’s action against the Palestinian people are horrific. In children alone, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), through UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and Africa Geert Cappelaere, noted that “40 children under the age of 14 had been killed by Israeli snipers”. In addition, UNICEF reported that since March 30, 2018 to the present 3,000 children have been hospitalized with bullet injuries, which have resulted in injuries that will accompany them for the rest of their lives. The UN, for its part, in a report released last February noted that the occupying forces have killed 299 Palestinians (195 of them in the Gaza Strip as part of these Marches for Return) and injured a total of 35,000 people, 90% of them in the coastal enclave. The majority of these victims were men, women, students, health workers, journalists, athletes and invalids. The vast majority of them, young people who were just beginning their lives.
UN estimates indicate that of the total number of injured, six thousand have been wounded by live ammunition, many of which have resulted in mutilation of legs, knees and arms. A clear confirmation of that threat of the chief of staff of the Israeli army, GadiEisenkot, to the Israeli military forces when the Palestinian mobilization began in March 2018 “my soldiers have authorization to open live fire” and within that strategy to use snipers, many of them praised for shooting at the head of the unarmed demonstrators, one of the most deadly elements of the Zionist army, which deserves worldwide condemnation but… the Israeli soldiers continue to massacre the Palestinian population with impunity, for who sanctions or forbids them?
For its part, on March 22, the UN Human Rights Council issued a report against Israel and its occupying military force, stating that “it has apparently made intentional use of illegal and other excessive lethal force”. This Human Rights Council, from which in 2018 both the United States and Israel withdrew, accusing the body of impartiality, voted in favour of an arms embargo against the Zionist regime, as well as the prosecution of Israelis suspected of having committed war crimes in Gaza during 2018. This is an important decision that could very well move the UN forward in its determination to move from Chapter VI of the UN Charter to Chapter VII because Israel is a clear threat to peace and its conduct of persistent breach of the peace.
The resolution of the UN Human Rights Council, consisting of 46 countries received 23 votes in favour, 9 against and 14 abstentions is based on a voluminous report that contains months of investigation, field visits, testimonies of witnesses and victims, carried out by the Commission of Inquiry into the protests in the occupied Palestinian territory. This report states that the Zionist regime committed “crimes against humanity…and the killing of civilians, who are not participating directly in the hostilities is a war crime” and the commission found that members of the Israeli army killed and wounded people who posed no threat.
On Friday, March 29, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) expressed concern “at the large number of casualties among unarmed Palestinian demonstrators caused by the excessive use of force by the Israeli army. OCHA has asked Tel Aviv to avoid more deaths and injuries, without the Zionist government or army having expressed any views. According to the latest OCHA report, Israeli forces have killed 299 Palestinian demonstrators and injured another 35,000 since the beginning of these mobilizations in Gaza, as well as in West Bank cities, which corresponds fully with other reports from other organizations linked to Palestine and the occupation process at the hands of Israel.
The words of OCHA are joined by international organizations such as Doctors Without Borders which have pointed out “that the medical, human and economic cost derived from the deaths, injuries and repression against Palestinians is unbearable”. This is happening in a besieged enclave where thousands of people are not receiving care despite suffering devastating injuries. It is absolutely clear that the humanitarian situation surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories is unique among the humanitarian crises that currently exist in the world because, as OCHA itself states in its report “Occupied Palestinian Territories: Fragmented Lives” released in 2017, ” this humanitarian crisis is the only one in the world”.
Translation by Internationalist 360°
INTERNATIONALIST 360° 